managing-autonomous-development

# Managing Autonomous Development

## Overview

Manage Sugar's autonomous development workflows: create development tasks, check system status, review pending work, and start autonomous execution mode. Sugar orchestrates AI-driven development by queuing tasks with type, priority, and execution parameters, then processing them sequentially or in parallel.

## Prerequisites

- Sugar plugin installed and configured in the project
- Sugar CLI available in the system PATH (`sugar --version`)
- Project repository initialized with Sugar configuration file
- Understanding of task types: `feature`, `bugfix`, `refactor`, `test`, `chore`
- Write access to the project codebase for autonomous execution

## Instructions

1. Check Sugar system status with `/sugar-status` to verify the daemon is running and view queue depth
2. Review pending tasks with `/sugar-review` to see queued work items, their priorities, and estimated complexity
3. Create new tasks with `/sugar-task <description> --type <type> --priority <1-5>` specifying the task description, type, and priority level
4. Validate Sugar configuration before starting autonomous mode: ensure test commands, lint rules, and commit settings are correct
5. Start autonomous execution in safe mode first: `/sugar-run --dry-run --once` to preview what Sugar would do without making changes
6. Monitor execution output for errors, test failures, or unexpected behavior during the dry run
7. Start full autonomous execution with `/sugar-run` when confident in the configuration
8. Review completed tasks and their outputs: check generated code, test results, and commit messages

## Output

- Task creation confirmations with task ID, type, priority, and queue position
- System status reports showing queue depth, active tasks, and execution history
- Task review summaries with descriptions, priorities, and estimated effort
- Execution logs showing task processing, code changes, test results, and commits
- Summary reports of completed autonomous development sessions

## Error Handling

| Error | Cause | Solution |
|-------|-------|---------|
| `Sugar daemon not running` | Sugar service not started or crashed | Start with `sugar start` or check logs for crash reason |
| `Task creation failed: invalid type` | Unsupported task type specified | Use valid types: `feature`, `bugfix`, `refactor`, `test`, `chore` |
| `Autonomous execution failed: tests failing` | Generated code does not pass project tests | Review the failing test output; fix the test or adjust the task description for clarity |
| `Configuration file not found` | Sugar config missing from project root | Initialize with `sugar init` to create the configuration file |
| `Priority out of range` | Priority value not between 1 and 5 | Use priority 1 (lowest) through 5 (highest/critical) |

## Examples

- "Create a new Sugar task: 'Add input validation to the user registration endpoint' with type feature and priority 3."
- "Check the current Sugar system status and list all pending tasks in the queue."
- "Start Sugar autonomous mode in dry-run to preview what changes it would make for the next queued task."

## Resources

- Sugar plugin documentation: https://github.com/roboticforce/sugar
- Task automation patterns: https://roboticforce.io/docs/sugar/
- Autonomous development best practices: https://roboticforce.io/docs/sugar/best-practices/